What I've Learned
By Leonardo Cuello

Solving problems isn't enough, because only the simple problems get to problem solvers; finding problems is the key, because the lost problems are the ones of true despair. If we handle only the cases that walk through the door, we treat only the clients that can walk. The clients who need the most help can't even walk through our door - they need to be found.

I've learned to listen to my clients more carefully than I expect them to listen to me, because despite my experience, I have more to learn from them than them from me. Clients who are poor, or uneducated, or just plain unlucky, tend to compensate for it with cleverness, resilience, and ingenuity. They've learned to navigate the system with no motor, no oars and no compass. Learn to react like they do and you can weather any storm.

For some clients, having someone to listen to them is more important than having someone to help them. Often times the empowerment of being heard is all a client needs to face their challenges head on. Every client is different, and we have to avoid the temptation to treat them all the same, to streamline our help, or to think that one size fits all. It does not; and often, that mentality is the reason we have the client in the first place.

I've learned to use my agendas to help my clients, and not my clients to further my policy objectives and goals. Sometimes, it is true, it may be in our professional interest to push clients to seek solutions that align with our longstanding policy battles. But clients are not a means to our ends. Treating them as means is to disrespect them, to degrade them, and chances are that if they have walked into our office, they have already received more than their fair share of these misfortunes. If we want them to be proud, we have to give their wishes the respect they deserve.

Your success is measured not only by the clients you take responsibility for and solve problems for, but also by the ones you responsibilize to solve their own problems. A client who needs to call you back the next time the problem occurs has not truly been helped. The only way to empower a client is to teach them not to need you, to teach them how simple what you do really is, and how much more than you they can accomplish on their own.